


Mickey Mouse and The Three Brothers

by Raynidreams



Category: The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-01
Updated: 2013-09-01
Packaged: 2017-12-25 04:56:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/948872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raynidreams/pseuds/Raynidreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soda practices his writing skills after Pony encourages him to write.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mickey Mouse and The Three Brothers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [r_lee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/r_lee/gifts).



> This is a first person POV fic, with the intention it link in with canon style. This, while taking into account Pony's version of what Soda is like.

I don't write much. I can't. The sentences don't come easily. To me, they feel like the links from a chain, but all separate and jumbled up on the floor. I can pick one up, but to get it to fit with the next one takes hours of sweat and hammering and it looks all funky when I’m done and doesn’t work as a big chain should. It's boring. It's hard.

Even so, Pony wants for me to try. He's the smart one. And if Pony says I should try, then I will. Darry also said it would be good for me to practice. Said that all those years I spent at school shouldn't be for nothing, and it’s hard to argue with them both like that. It’s also hard when even that doll, Cherry, says, 'Girls like smart and cute' - this as she was talking about Pony. And shoot, it's true. He's both. Just as Darry is, well, not cute, but girls like him. Me? I'm not smart, but, maybe, I could try being smarter than I am. ~~If I'd have been smarter then maybe, Sandy-~~

So I'm going to try. I am going to write. And wow, I have. Two bits there on the page. Two chains, all hanging together like a proper gang. Ha ha, my two-bits worth. I will remember to try and tell Two-Bit that. So maybe I can write a little. I wonder if that _is_ actually the key then? Like, REALLY how to think about this? Like that but not as something I can’t do exactly, but maybe that the chain doesn't have to be all big and heavy duty chain. The words could be like decoration chain. Or, I could think of a car instead. I can put cars together. I do. That's fun. And cool. Though there I have a plan and can talk and dance and flirt while doing it. Huh. Well, I said I would try. And I do have tools, at least. I have some paper and a pencil.

Before I started, the blank papers and my pencil looked pretty dull too. Still do. Dull and grainy. But with that bit of sweat, the paper now has three chains, a thumb print, and the rubber on my pencil is chewed. I’ve made something here.

Before I'd added my chains, or word car, I couldn't think of what I could write that would be needful enough to write about. Be worth me building a word car, other than for the practice of one. It was a stumbling block. Because I don't need to build word cars to earn dollars. I build car-cars. I tried looking at the clouds or the colour of the sky, like Pony would, for inspiration to start out. I tried to see shapes in them that might give me a great scene. A picture from a movie or something. But I couldn't make it happen. For one, I can rarely make it to the end of a movie, because even though I want to know what's going to happen, the problem is that I always want to know what’s happening, but happening next, all over in Oklahoma, as well as where I am. I like things to always be about the next thing. And when I looked at the clouds then, they were pretty clouds, but they moved too slow, did the same thing, and I couldn't find the words in me to make them into the shapes of people which move fast. People like in a love story, or an old battle scene. I need to be with Pony, to hear him speak first to give me the clues to do that. So then I tried to think about what Darry might write. What Darry would think was good. A story about a cool private inspector? With some beautiful girl, like on the cover of that magazine I used to mop up grease yesterday? I remembered the picture of them in my head, but what I might add as their names or how they would meet became confusing. I kept changing my mind, then getting the bits mixed up. This before it occurred to me that Darry would like to read something true, something real like about an athlete done good or a great thinker changing something important. One, perhaps, who might come up with a way to change us being Greasers and, over town, them being Socs. (I asked Pony how to spell that. He said it was a _collqual-_ something, and that was his best guess.)

Hmm. Darry would like to read something true. I think, so would I. I do better when it's something which, in a way, I know could be a part of me.

I chew my pencil some more, and then make the thumb print into a face. A round face with big ears.

TRUE. REAL.

Lots of things have happened recently. Tough, REAL things. True things. Lots of bad things. Awful, horrible things. Pony has written about them. He got an award at school for what he wrote. Not that he wrote it for that reason. I got him to read bits to me. It made me cry and hurt. It was very honest. It's one of the many things I like about Pony: that Pony is honest. He feels what he feels and says so. He also thinks over what he thinks and often realises that what he thought at the beginning might not be what he's always going to think, if that makes sense? It’s a good trait to have.

Darry's proud of him for the award and for what he did before, with those kids. He’s really, really, proud. And for once, Pony knows it. It's good to see them knowing one another again. It's been hard for me since Mom and Dad went.

And it’s at this point, I think I know what I am going to write about.

Pony said, 'Maybe people are younger when they sleep.'

I recall him saying I could put anyone to sleep. Maybe I just aim to be younger all the time. And maybe I'm not smart, but perhaps I am young and also wise. It's different from smart.

Yes, I know what I am going to write. It may take me some time to make it a story, but it is one which is true. And it feels real to me.

 

***

**Mickey Mouse and the Three Brothers**

 

Soda lay winded on the ground, the pain yet to hit, but his lungs bursting. He wheezed, feeling the panic build that he was going to die. His body told him so. It knew it more than his brain did that it needed air to survive, and it sent alarm bells ringing throughout all of his muscles.

Above him, the world whorled. The sparse trees, the blue sky, circling down and reaching for him like a tornado, until a blurry, dark shape blacked it all out.

“Soda? Little buddy – you okay?”

Oh, Soda thought. He couldn’t be dying. Not when called by that voice. Because only Darry ever called him that. Only Darry could. He knew it, but his body refused to listen for a second because his throat struggled to suck in air. His pipes feeling like dry summer straw.

“SODA! SODA!” came a yell. Soda recognised the new voice, squeaking and high pitched. It was Pony.

Gradually things cleared into focus over him, and the faces above him lost their darkness, and melded into proper features. Darry’s firm and strong. Pony’s delicate and chubby. Soda coughed and his lungs finally co-operated, allowing him to take in more air.

Then he grinned, he couldn’t help it. His panic dwindling; it was his first response to anything. To smile.

“I think he’s been dropped on his head once too many times, hey Darry?” piped up Pony again, his treble buzzing with the same exhilaration and also fear Soda felt fading from his veins. Soda felt hands come beneath his shoulders, and recognised the roughness of Darry’s palms where they scratched his neck, then went digging around under his t-shirt for broken bones and cuts.

Soda noticed how Darry didn’t answer the nine year old. That's because at fifteen, Darry was all seriousness and practicality. He carefully lifted Soda up until he was sitting, and then Soda felt his brother’s fingers come around to his ribs as Soda took his first full breath, winced, coughed again, then gave a weak chuckle. Then all three brothers looked up to where the horse that had thrown Soda pawed at the ground in challenge. Mickey Mouse, as the horse was dubbed, snorted at them, merrily amused at his new rider’s misfortune.

“Well, he’s a doll!” Soda said cheerfully.

“Yeah – a real sweetheart. Remind me to have a word with you before you start checking out girls, Soda. I think you might need some directing,” Darry muttered, scooting Soda up to his feet. The world did its little dance again, and then calmed down enough for Soda to stand on his own – his rear and back smarting, but otherwise intact for his flying lesson.

“Man, that was tuff, Soda!” Pony whistled. Soda glanced from the colt – still mocking him with mincing little steps, daring him to try and sit upon him again – down to his little brother. At his reddish hair and green eyes. Sunburn a bright strip across his nose where he'd been watching the sky all morning. The frank admiration beaming from those eyes and in his smile.

Soda ruffled his hair, messing up the silky strands. “It was cool enough, for sure!”

“I think you’ve both been dropped on your heads one too many times,” Darry muttered. He regarded them both critically, hiding his grin - Soda knew. So Soda shoved his hands in his pockets and slouched like it was nothing. And it soon showed that it was only who Pony didn’t know how to be cool like that yet.

“Aw! But Darry, he musta gone fifty feet high an’ more! You seen him! Like a bird!” The youngest Curtis then proceeded to spin on his one heal, arms extended like wings. “Whoosh! He threw you so far!”

"Yeah. Not sure it's a good idea to try again, Soda. The horse almost went for Pony while you were lacking feathers."

Soda looked at the horse, at his one brother's frowning and his other brother's excitement.

"Nah. I just gotta learn how to talk to him right."

Soda then rubbed his aching back, and made towards the horse.

 

The end.  
By Sodapop Curtis.


End file.
